The Just So Story (also known as a "pourquoinote French for "why?" story," "origin story," or "aetiological tale") is a folktale or myth that explains an aspect of nature: the seasons, the weather, features of exotic animals, etc. Some of these are weird enough that relating these to modern ears may elicit cries of Values Dissonance.

Named for a collection of children's stories by Rudyard Kipling, Just So Stories, which included tales like "How the Whale Got Its Throat" and "How the Camel Got Its Hump" (Kipling had written a kind of tryout called "How Fear Came", explaining how tigers got their stripes and why they aren't herbivores, in The Second Jungle Book). See the sister trope, Painting the Frost on Windows.

Not to be confused with Superhero Origin. A Creation Myth is a particularly ambitious Just So Story regarding how Life, the Universe and/or Everything began.

Examples:

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Comic Books

The Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye: The annual contains one of these, explaining the origin of Cybertronian civilisation, and the nature of the mysterious Guiding Hand, who are apparently gods created by Primus at the beginning of time, who created Cybertronian civilisation with "a wave of their hands", and that Cybertronians are supposedly immortal since they killed their god of death. Later revelations in the series show two claims from these stories, the aforementioned immortality and the fact that one of Cybertron's moons was destroyed are patently untrue (they aren't, and it wasn't, respectively).

Fan Works

The My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fan-made animation Snowdrop is a Just So Story detailing the origin of snowflakes. Title character Snowdrop, a blind pegasus filly, carved the first snowflake from her frozenteardrop, in a tribute to the season of winter and to the stars she could never see.

In Fullmetal Alchemist fanfic Sins of the Father in Ishvallan folklore, the creator god Ishvala had a brother, the destruction god Natan. While they made the world together, Natan grew jealous as everyone paid more attention to his brother. So he tried creating things on his own, becoming the first alchemist. One day, Natan crossed the line by attempting to create life, resulting in an abomination so horrible that Natanís hair immediately went white and he gouged his eyes out. Ishvala banished his brother for his failure, but created humans in Natanís new image to keep him company. So Natan was the first alchemist and the first Ishvalan.

Films — Animation

According to Melody Time's Pecos Bill segment, coyotes howl at the moon out of sympathy for a man who lost his love.

According to Disney's The Princess and the Frog, stars are actually created from the ghosts of dead fireflies, a story that also appeared (in a slightly different form) in the earlier animated Disney movie The Lion King.

In Moana, a few natural phenomena happen because the demi-god Maui did it. The movie itself can also be seen as a Just So Story on why the Polynesians stopped voyaging for two thousand years (known as the "long pause").

Paul Bunyan has got a lot of these: Minnesota has 10,000 lakes because his giant footprints filled up with water. The Mississippi River goes all the way down the country 'cause Paul dug it as a canal to float his logs down (incidentally, the piles of dirt he scooped out became the Rocky Mountains). Michigan looks like a mitten because Bunyan had lost his and subconsciously logged the peninsula in that shape. Lake Superior is so cold because Paul's icebox is at the bottom. The Grand Canyon is the result of Paul dragging his axe behind him. Kansas is flat because he flipped it upside down, so that all its mountains are buried underground. The moon's so full of craters 'cause Paul kicked a hard-headed splinter cat right into it. And the Aurora Borealis is caused by Paul rough-housing with Babe the Blue Ox, knocking frozen light out of the ice and snow in the Alaskan tundra.

Same goes for Pecos Bill. He dug the Rio Grande to irrigate his ranch and the Grand Canyon while prospecting for gold. He invented centipede and tarantula as practical jokes, taught the bronco how to buck, and made Death Valley the time he fell off a tornado and left a crater in the ground.

The Norwegian Fairy Tale "Why the Sea is Salt." The story reveals that it's because of a magical food-producing hand-mill, which a greedy sea-captain set to producing salt. It churned out so much salt that the boat sank, and thus nobody was ever able to stop it. The mill sits on the ocean floor to this day, which is why seawater is salty.

According to Christian folklore:

The dogwood tree used to grow tall and broad until its wood was chosen to make the cross for Jesus' crucifixion. Because it regretted having to be used for such a purpose, God made it so that dogwoods would be small and slender from that point on, thus making them unsuitable for building crosses. In addition, God gave the dogwood its distinctive flowers, with four white petals tipped with rusty red and a crown of "thorns" in the center, which bloom during the Easter season as a reminder of Jesus' sacrifice.

Christian folklore abounds with flowers that the Blessed Virgin Mary somehow brought into existence. Lilies of the Valley grew at the foot of the Cross, where Mary's tears fell. And when Mary was assumed into Heaven, Easter lilies grew from the last bit of earth that she stood on.

One of the stories that makes Joel Chandler Harris' "Uncle Remus" stories (supposedly collected from former slaves around the South) so famously racist is one about why people have different skin colors. Long ago, all the people in the world lived in one "neighborhood", and were black. One day somebody discovered a lake outside town that turned your skin white (which was a desirable thing, obviously). The people that jumped at the chance and ran for it got full exposure and thus became white people; the people that walked became "merlatters" (which Uncle Remus assures us includes the Chinese); and the people that came last found that the lake had been used up and were forced to remain black because they were so lazy. Needless to say, this particular tale doesn't crop up in many adaptions...

A number of stories about Anansi the spider are said to explain the behavior of spiders. To name one example, spiders like to make their webs in dark corners because when Anansi was caught stealing crops from his neighbor, he was so ashamed he hid in the rafters of his house for a week.

One Native American story tells that the coyote has yellow eyes because he was tricked by some birds into losing his eyes (he saw them juggling their eyes, and wanted to join in, despite their warnings), and he needed to make new ones from tar.

Substitute crabs for the birds and Jaguar for Coyote, and the same story is told further south as well.

Jokes

One day, God created the human, the donkey, the monkey and the dog. He told the donkey "You will spend 60 years plowing the fields and working your ass off to feed your family". The donkey replied "60 years doing that is too long, 20 is enough." And God agreed. He then told the monkey "you will live 30 years to act like an imbecile to amuse the children". The monkey replied 30 years doing that? That'll get boring after a while, so 20 is okay for me.". And God agreed. Then He told the dog "You will spend 30 years guarding a territory and barking at everything that approaches.". The dog replied "30 years? That will be too long. 20 is enough for me.". And God agreed. Then God told the human "You will live 20 years and have fun, eat good food, have sex and so on." And the human replied "Hold on. The Donkey gave up 40 years, the monkey 10 and the dog another 10. I want them." And God agreed. This is why humans spend the 20 first years of their lives as pampered children, the next 40 years of their lives working hard to provide for their families, the next 10 years acting like an imbecile to amuse their grandchildren and their last 10 years of life barking at everything that approaches their home.

In Pyramids, the citizens of Djelibeybi believe a number of different stories on why the sun moves through the sky: it's being rolled by a dung beetle, carried by a boat, pulled by a chariot, etc. (Most of which are based on real Egyptian myths — over time, different deities fell in and out of popularity, so there were several Egyptian sun gods at different times). A freak accident involving pyramids traps the country in a pocket dimension where all these stories are true, which results in about a dozen sun gods fighting over who gets to carry the sun. This segment even includes one of the priests calling the play-by-play as if it were a rugby match (before being promptly killed for his heresy).

In The Last Hero, the N'Tuitif tribe has such "myths" as How The Giraffe Got Its Long Neck: an ancestor of the giraffe had a slightly longer neck than other animals, and could reach higher leaves, with the longer-necked giraffes surviving more easily to pass their long neck to their children... sound familiar? Their stories seem to end with a phrase like "This is just a thing that happened" or "and so it is".

Another Pratchett example is from Nation, where the prologue is titled "How Imo Made the World, In The Time When Things Were Otherwise And The Moon Was Different" and manages to combine three explanations from one story.

Watership Down includes a generous helping of rabbit mythology. The creation tale has the sun, Frith, make all the animals, only they're all the same and all eat grass. The rabbit, El-ahrairah (Elil Hrair Rah - "Prince with a Thousand Enemies," obviously not his name at the time), began making babies so abundantly that they ate most of the grass, leaving the other animals hungry. They complained to Frith, so Frith blessed them with teeth and claws that made them into the creatures they are today. Many of these changed creatures had a hankering for rabbit meat, and when El-ahrairah heard of it, he began to dig a hole in which to hide. Frith moseyed on up to the burrow and there is the following basic exchange:

Frith: My friend, have you seen El-ahrairah? For I wish to give him a gift. El-ahrairah: No, I have not seen him. Frith: Come out, and I will bless you instead. El-ahrairah: No, I cannot. I am busy. The fox and weasel are coming. If you want to bless me, you will have to bless my bottom. Frith: Very well. Be it so. And El-ahrairah's tail grew shining white, and it flashed like a star. And his back legs grew long and powerful. He tore across the hill faster than any creature in the world. Frith: All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies. And whenever they catch you, they will kill you... but first, they must catch you. Strong digger, fast runner... be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.

In C. S. Lewis's Till We Have Faces, the narrator mentions a sacred story as to why pigs are an abomination to the local goddess, but does not tell it. More importantly, at one point she comes across a priest in a forest shrine who tells her a story explaining why the seasons change, which she realizes is a retelling of the story of her sister and a local god. Angry that the gods have planted their version of the story in the imagination of storytellers, she resolves to write a book giving her own version.

In the Warrior CatsguidebookSecrets of the Clans, there are stories explaining how adders came to exist and how tigers got their stripes.

In Patrick Rothfuss' The Wise Man's Fear, Elodin asks the main character Kvothe during his exams. "Where does the moon go when it is not in the sky?" It was the one question he genuinely did not know. Cue several chapters later, a companion of his tells a childhood story explaining how a young boy learned the moon's name and trapped part of the name in a box. Later events show that the "Just So" Story is essentially true (except it was a Master Namer, not a boy, and the "box" was actually Another Dimension where The Fair Folk live).

Although this is not its main purpose, a large portion of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion makes efforts to explain a number of things, such as why the stars were made, why there are seasons, where the Sun and Moon came from, as well as why the Moon is marred and why it deviates from its course to occasionally eclipse the Sun, why the center of the Earth is molten, and why the Earth is round and not flat. The beginning of the book features a proper Creation Myth, which is more spiritual and predates all of these celestial advents.

The Tad Williams novel Tailchaser's Song depicts our world through the eyes of a cat society with its own mythology, including creation myths and Just-So Stories. Of particular note is the story of the creation of human beings: A particularly disrespectful, tricky cat was caught out by the gods. For his punishment, he was stretched out unnaturally and forced to walk the rest of time on his hind legs.

Florence Page Jacques's story, "Why Holly Berries are Red" has the berries—then white—going sledding on the leaves of the bush. The berries became red from the cold and the leaves became bent and curled from the frequent crashes.

The first chapter of Star Wars: Kenobi opens with the Tusken Raider story of how the younger of Tatooine's Binary Suns committed a transgression, "showing his true face"—anathema to a people that always goes masked. The older star tried to kill the younger, but failed, and now the younger sun continuously pursues the older across the sky, and in their anger the suns scorched the planet into a desert forevermore. The actions of the two suns inform the Sand People's philosophies.

"Les Mémoires de Zeus" by Maurice Druon naturally has this in spades. Especially clever is the overly long love night of Zeus and Mnemosyne: Each Muse character comes out due to the mood the pair just was in. The author needs epic handwaving to get everything in an unforced order, but he succeeds in letting everything look perfectly logical.

Invoked in Dream Park, when an important in-Game info dump about the Haiavaha is conveyed to the South Seas Treasure players in the form of a folktale which incorporates a "why dogs can't talk" example.

Myths & Religion

According to one Greek myth, the unpleasant seasons of the yearWhich? In the original Greek telling, it was summer because the Mediterranean climate has much milder winters. As the myth made its way north, this was changed to be winter. occur when Persephone, daughter of the harvest goddess Demeter, is forced to stay in the Underworld with her husband Hades for six months (due to eating six seeds). Demeter gets so depressed that she refuses to let anything grow.

Older Than Dirt: The Sumero-Babylonian culture had a story about the origin of seasons: Inanna (Ishtar) Descends to the Underworld. The goddess in question goes to visit her sister Ereshkigal, Queen of the Underworld, and is killed there. Her priestess friend (and another deity) bring her Back from the Dead, but she is not allowed to go back home unless she brings back a suitable substitute... her own beloved husband, Dumuzi, because he wasn't visibly in mourning while she was gone. His sister pleads to be taken instead. Ultimately, the sister spends six months down there (summer, because Ishtar is with her true love) and Dumuzi spends winter down there (everything goes dormant because Ishtar misses him so much). The form where the seasons are flipped has also been told (scorching summer when she is separated from her love, mild, pleasant, rainy winter — crops still grow in the wintertime in southern Mesopotamia — when they are together). It's possible that both versions were known in Ancient Mesopotamia, as lower/southern Mesopotamia is a flat lowland with a much warmer climate than mountainous upper/northern Mesopotamia (to this day there are strong cultural differences between these regions, which the ethnic and religious divisions of modern Iraq only exacerbate).

Phaeton, Helios' son, is responsible for deserts and cold places on the earth. Never let your teenager drive the sun-chariot around without a license. (This is also why Africans are black.)

Most of the Greek myths that go "Zeus shagged/raped a hot human chick and she gave birth to a son" are origin myths explaining one of three things: (1) Where each of the Greek tribes/peoples came from (e.g. the tale of Zeus and Eurymedusa, producing the Myrmidons); (2) How the Greek cities came to be built (e.g. the tale of Zeus and Antiope, producing one of the twins who built Thebes); or (3) Why a particular family got to be king of a city and others didn't (e.g. the tale of Zeus and Europa, producing Minos, who legendarily founded the royal dynasty of Crete). Other gods could step in—for instance, the Kings of Athensnote Yes, famously democratic Athens had a king before it became a democracy. The kings supposedly gave up rulership to save the city—the king had a prophecy that either the king would die or the city would be destroyed, so he had himself killed disguised as a peasant, and the monarchy was abolished because nobody could be as good a king as that—and instead took semi-hereditary positions in the Athenian judiciary (one of the judges would always be a member of the royal family). claimed descent from Poseidon instead, which supposedly explained Athens' domination of the sea.

Also from Greek myth: one founding tale about Athens holds that when the founders of the city were deciding what to name the city (and to whom they would dedicate their primary cult), Athena and Poseidon competed against each other. Athena offered an olive tree; Poseidon gave a saltwater spring. The city fathers chose Athena and named the city Athens (well, Athēnai). This tale "explains" several traits of Athens: an old olive tree (and Attica's general reputation for olives) and a saltwater spring (which both existed at that time), as well as Athens' wit and wisdom (traits associated with Athena) and orientation to the sea (Poseidon's domain).

Norse Mythology credits earthquakes to the god Loki, who is chained to the earth for ridiculing the gods at a wake held for the god Balder, which considering all the much worse things Loki has done in the past (like being largely responsible for Balder's death, and Balder having to stay dead in some versions of the story), was apparently the last straw. A giant serpent lies above him, dripping caustic poison, but fortunately Loki's wife tirelessly sits between them, holding a cup to catch the poison. However, sometimes she has to empty the cup, and then...

In one Hawaiian myth, the volcano goddess Pele raised the archipelago out of the ocean one by one in an attempt to outrun her sister the sea-goddess, who kept flooding the islands. Pele's older brother helped her escape, so in gratitude she never lets volcanic steam touch his particular cliffs. Another legend says that Maui pulled the islands up from the ocean floor on a very eventful fishing trip.

According to Genesis, snakes lost their legs as punishment from God for tempting Eve. Women endure painful childbirth, humanity in general works for a living, and everybody eventually dies because Adam and Eve ate fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, but God evicted them from the Garden of Eden before they could eat fruit from the Tree of Life so that they would not have to live in that state forever.

Also, why are there multiple nations in the world with different languages? Because God wanted to stop us cooperating with each other so we could never again build something like the Tower of Babel.

Rainbows are a promise from God to never flood the entire world again. The occasional small country, perhaps, but only one at a time...

According to a highly heterodox interpretation (i.e. followed by a few conspiracy theorists and cultists) the word "Elohim" in the original text of the Hebrew Bible is not a majestic plural of the word "god" (Eloh= "god"; "-im"= Hebrew pluralization suffix), as accepted by virtually all Jews and Christians (and, for what it's worth, Muslims and other random Abrahamic faiths like the Baha'i and Rastafari). Instead, they put forward that "Elohim" is a literal plural referring to a whole species of gods of varying appearance. Genesis 1 thus "accounts" for the racial differences between groups of humans by stating that the Elohim made men each in their own image and likeness. This, according to the followers of this theory, "explains" why each nation's gods look remarkably like their people. Never mind that majestic plurals are almost embarrassingly characteristic of Semitic languages, or that only part of the Bible uses "Elohim" to refer to God...

Another one from one of the cultures that occupied the Four Corner states tells the story of why the vulture/condor has no feathers on its head. Besides the obvious lesson, a secondary heading for the tale might be something like "why you should never go spelunking in the rear end of Mr. Bear".

Existing somewhere in the space between this trope and a Creation Myth, various stories told by different peoples in the Western parts of North America credit Coyote (or his more Northern Expy Raven) for the existence of fire (a la Prometheus), sunlightnote Raven stole it from the first chief, who kept it in a box all to himself, and then released it in an attempt to get back at a couple of fishermen who wouldn't give him their catch. It worked, and created the notion of daytime, thus ushering in the era for modern humans, the starsnote he begged to be allowed to or was asked to place the stars in the sky by the creator deity. He started doing it carefully, until he got bored/tripped and fell/couldn't help but peek in a bag he was told not to/sneezed, and the rest wound up scattered all across the sky without rhyme or reason, death, or humans, among other things, with the impetus ranging from underhanded heroics to malicious intent to incompetence.

In one Chinese myth, the Sun (a decent but kind of ugly dude) is relentlessly pursuing the Moon (a beautiful but haughty lady).

In another, the order of the animals of the Eastern Zodiac is determined by a race among said animals including the Cat. The Rat and the Cat, good friends previous to the race, decided to work together to complete it. On the last segment, where the animals had to cross a river, they rode on the back of the Ox, but Rat pushed Cat overboard at the last minute, then used Ox's head as a springboard to launch himself into first place. The Cat was therefore left out of the Zodiac and swore revenge on the Rat ever since.

More commonly, the Rat told the Cat the feast/race had been moved to the next day, and occasionally the Cat just slept in an extra 24 hours and fought with the Rat for unrelated reasons.

In another, the animals in the Chinese zodiac appear in this order because of the order in which they attempted to wake Buddha up from his sleep under the fig tree. Also, it should be noted that the Cat comes in place of the Rabbit in Vietnam.

Conversely, to the Inuit, it's the other way around: the Sun is a woman who was raped by her brother, the Moon, and is running away from him. The Moon's motives may vary, either begging for forgiveness or being abusive again.

One wonders how they account for eclipses.

To southeastern Australians, the sun is a woman who is pursuing the male moon, who rejects her advances. But don't feel too sorry for him, since he also instilled humanity's enmity with snakes for petty reasons.

Maori history, derived from the same sources as the Hawaiian example above has the demi-god Maui to explain almost everything. He raised the north island of New Zealand when he caught it while fishing. (It was a stingray. The South island is his canoe.) His greedy brothers chopped it up, creating all the mountains. He stole fire from his grandmother and hid it in a tea tree for later use (Tea tree is very flammable.) When the sun went around too fast, making the days short, he trapped it and beat it half to death with his grandmother's jawbone.

A Native American story says that the first people were made out of cornmeal dough and baked in an oven. The Baker took the first batch out too early, and they were all pasty and pale, so he threw them away across the sea. The second batch he left in too long, and they came out all black and burnt, so he threw them away across the sea. The third batch came out all reddish brown, just right, so he kept them. (This tale almost certainly postdates contact with Europeans, which just goes to show that not all myths are ancient.)

According to Aztec mythology, the Aztec god of the Sun, Huizilpochtli, dies at the end of every day, and must be brought back to life via human sacrifice to prevent the world from falling into eternal night.

Pro Wrestling

God was in a bad mood one day, so he took a piranha, gave her legs, a snake's head and gorilla hands then left her to her own devices. The mountaintops froze from her sight and the sun was ignited by her breath when she caught a cold.

Video Games

Civilization: Beyond Earth has a whole slate of what might be called "new folk tales" in its setting, told among the colonists of whatever planet you arrived on. The most prominent, the Uncle Nevercloned Stories, contain no small number of these, usually involving Coyote, Anansi, and John Henry (he of the race against the steam engine).

It has a number of strips involving made-up mythological origins for the characters, sometimes written by themselves. For instance, in Lyle's story, he came into being as a three-year-old, from the wreckage of an exploding pickup truck being worked on in the driveway by God and the Devil. They asked his name, and he defiantly chanted "Ace of spades! Ace of spades!"

That's nothing compared to "The Todd Creation Myth". A stork drops a burrito into a volcano, and Todd crawls out of it 100 minutes later muttering "frick". After the stork calls him an asshole for eating his burrito, Todd strangles it to death and it morphs into a squirrel-sized van. It's... it's something.

One Popeye short has him spinning a fanciful tale on why the sea is salty (involving a magic device which punishes its owner for being greedy by creating endless salt instead of gold). After the story is told, Swee'Pea lampshades it by given the actual explanation, including detailed scientific terms; Olive Oyl chimes in with, "Anybody knows that, Popeye."

An animated adaptation exists of two of Kipling's Just So Stories, namely "How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin" and "How the Camel Got His Hump". It's narrated by Jack Nicholson and has music by Bobby Mc Ferrin.

Then there's an animated "How the Leopard Got His Spots". Either Ladysmith Black Mambazo or a very similar band did the soundtrack for it.

The Paul Bunyan myths were parodied on The Simpsons. Bunyan smoking a bunch of cigars is the origin of The Great Smoky Mountains, trampling a forest resulted in Death Valley, and him dancing around while getting drunk is what created the Big Holes With Beer National Park.

First by explaining where fat people come from: three groupies hug too closely when trying to make a selfie and merge into one really fat chick. Followed by a narrator explaining "And that's where fat girls come from."

Second by explaining what the term "Croc" means in slang: When a Crocodile ruins an Alligator-themed pep rally by suggesting they do Crocodile things, only for one of the Gators to call him a "Croc" . Followed by the same narrator explaining "And that's where we get the term."

Similar to Family Guy, an episode of Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy did a story which told of how the term "beaver" became a nickname for a vagina when some forest animals used the word "vagina" to refer to a jerkass beaver that had been desecrating their homes.

Narrator: Join me next week, when I'll tell you how the bear became synonymous with the chubby homosexual.

A really cute animation in Die Sendung mit der Maus explains many nature phenomenons by anthropomorphing the sun. (For example, she thought that everybody hates her, but it was just too hot so everybody took cover... and when she goes down in the evening, all people applaud her and her face gets red with abashment.)

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